


Widow's Weeds

by Kispexi2



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-07
Updated: 2006-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kispexi2/pseuds/Kispexi2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 'Major Character Death' will come as no surprise if you've seen <i>Serenity</i> (the movie).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Widow's Weeds

The No Man's Land between the Independents' trenches and the Alliance front line was thick with it. A tangle of spear-shaped leaves and soft, blood-red flowers, spilling from too-hard stalks. Zoe's boots would catch in it as she ran for cover, ripping the tender, unregarded plants from the ground and scattering premature seeds in her wake.

A pernicious weed. Amaranthus.

But that was a long time ago and no longer relevant. She turns back to the bed whereon lies her long white dress, slinky in its way but subtle too. Wash would have liked it. Should have.

On Earth-that-was, white had been for weddings in some cultures and for mourning in others; Zoe's husband would have appreciated the joke.

"Ready?" Mal asks like he always did when things were bad.

Zoe picks up her wreath and smiles. "Always."

He gives her his arm and together they walk out into the dying rays of the new 'verse's sun.

Zoe doesn't pray, even though, unlike her Captain, she still believes. Instead she stands at the crest of the ridge, holds her twist of blooms aloft and lets it go. A sudden gust of wind takes it and the flowers and leaves soar and dance, as if gravity were of no consequence and dreams merely a wish away ... But reality intervenes and the cold, hard laws of physics bring them crashing back down.

And love lies bleeding.

Amaranthus: 'unwithering'.

Like love.


End file.
